


Home For The Holidays

by frackin_sweet



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Reality, Christmas, Domestic, Family Drama, Gen, Holidays, Humor, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-23
Updated: 2010-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frackin_sweet/pseuds/frackin_sweet





	Home For The Holidays

“Why are you scorning your sister’s invitation?” Sherlock asks the question without preamble. He’s seated, head bent over a book that John can tell he’s not really reading. He’s just using the columns of text to focus his attention while he thinks about an an obscure, unsolved missing-persons case that Dimmock has been harrying him over.

And while he pries into John’s private correspondence. Not unusual; as Sherlock seems to consider John’s personal life his purview as well.

John drops the lid to the empty tea canister with a clatter. He’s getting bloody tired of being the only one running to the market. “Let me guess. You gathered from the shaky writing on the envelope that it was from Harry, on a bad hangover day? The envelope has a certain smell of the moors to it?”

Sherlock doesn’t look up from the book, just purses his lips. “Actually, I got tired of looking at the one piece of post you keep leaving on the table. I opened it. She’s invited you home for Christmas. Why haven’t you answered?”

John considers going down to beg a cup of tea from Mrs. Hudson. She’s a chatterer, and perhaps he could indulge her in conversation long enough to let Sherlock’s interest in John’s rejection of a family holiday pass.

“She’s your only family; and I know you’re not close, but avoidance isn’t going to help that situation. And I know Sarah’s on holiday in Portugal. It’s not like you have plans.”

“Since when are you my therapist? Or my travel planner?”

Sherlock shrugs, a diffident contraction of his narrow shoulders. “I’m bored.”

Something occurs to John, and he picks up the ignored envelope from the table. It is still sealed. “Wait. You said you opened it, and then you bothered to re-seal it, carefully enough that I couldn’t tell it’d been opened, and then you told me about it?”

Abruptly, Sherlock gets up, re-shelves the book, and selects another. He opens it randomly, and starts reading again. “You still haven’t answered my question. You should go. You should at least call her.”

“Right, because you’re working on your Christmas card to Mycroft right now, are you? Pardon me if I think your advice in this department is rubbish.”

At this point they’re saved from argument by the ringing of Sherlock’s mobile. He answers it, and conducts his conversation as though John isn’t even in the room. So John follows his earlier impulse to call upon Mrs. Hudson. She has tea, and biscuits, and has him sit on a fearfully needle-pointed cushion and look at photographs of her grandchildren. It’s tolerable for fifteen minutes, and not a second more.

“How are you spending Christmas this year, dear?” she asks, refilling his cup.

And only because it will get him out of there, does he say: “I’m going home. To see my sister. In fact, I need to ring her now, if you’ll excuse me?”

Sherlock has gone out, so John has the flat to himself and his indignity as he dials Harry’s number. She doesn’t answer, so he leaves her a message.

“I’ll be there,” he says. Then he has a short sulk, because he knows this means not only has he taken Sherlock’s suggestion, he’s got some last-minute shopping to complete. Fortunately he hasn’t spent his entire paycheck just yet.

Some hours later, he returns with parcels in tow.

Sherlock is standing in the middle of the sitting room. Blindfolded. Brandishing an èpeè.

“What do you think you’re doing!” John has to dodge a particularly energetic thrust.

“Trying to figure out how a blind man could have stabbed a world-class fencing champion in the liver with a rapier.” Sherlock makes another lunge that looks like a fleche attack, and steps over the footstool; how he’s managing such balance and grace whilst blindfolded, John has absolutely no idea.

He sighs. “Mind the draperies, then. We can’t afford to replace another set right now.”

“John. Pick up the other èpeè, I need an opponent to properly -”

Before John can reply, one of his shopping bags breaks, and oranges roll around on the floor. One bumps into Sherlock’s foot, and he stabs it with the tip of the èpeè. Then, intrigued, he pulls off the blindfold. “Oh, good, you did the shopping. We’ve been out of food.”

John grabs the mortally wounded orange, and starts gathering up the rest. “And this isn’t our food, per se. I needed to shop, for the holiday. I’m leaving in the morning. For Haltwhistle.”

At this, Sherlock tosses the èpeè away and claps his hands together. “Brilliant!” he exclaims, his voice booming so loud that there is an answering knocking from Mrs. Hudson below. He bends to help gather up the oranges, and John catches a glimpse of more than the usual three nicotine patches on his sinewy forearm. That would explain the preternatural, blindfolded poise, and perhaps the enthusiasm.

“What’s brilliant, then?” John takes the handfuls of oranges from Sherlock and dumps them into another bag.

Sherlock smiles. “I’ve always wanted to see the Wall.”

It takes John a moment to follow. Hadrian’s Wall. Which is visible from the Watson family property outside the village of Haltwhistle. Because Sherlock has, of course, deduced that John doesn’t relish the idea of being holed up with his sister for several days, and has invited himself along. Out of the goodness of his dark, sociopathic heart.

John sighs again. So much for a quiet Christmas at home.

*  
"Quit mooning over that email from Sarah and give over your laptop, would you?" Sherlock holds out a hand. "It's not going to turn into something more interesting to read while you're looking at it."

John resolves that any further travel they do together will be limited to cab rides. Short ones. Not quite halfway through the four and a half hour trip from London to Haltwhistle, and he's feeling sorely tried. Sherlock had paced the rail car for a full hour, talking to himself, until the other travelers looked ready to tackle him. John had managed to lure him into sitting down with a discussion of investigatory blood detection methods, but that had lasted a matter of minutes.

"How do you even know I'm reading an email from Sarah?"

Sherlock stares out the window at the passing countryside and drums his fingers on the armrest. "First, you keep checking your email account, I can recognize your password from the number and sequence of keystrokes. Second, you aren't receiving any new mail because of the holiday, thus you keep opening the same message." A vague smirk pulls at one side of Sherlock's mouth. "Third, you blush a little when you read it." He looks away from the window and leans forward. "Just some endearments, or maybe a naughty suggestion or two. Sarah's plain, a professional woman in her thirties...not the type for sending photos of herself _en deshabille_."

John keeps re-reading... _It's cold in Lisbon, wouldn't be, though, if you had come along. Mum spends all her time shopping and at tea with her friends, so we could've had the villa all to ourselves, light a fire in the fireplace..._

John closes the Internet browser window and hands over the laptop. "She sends the photos to my mobile, actually."

Sherlock's eyes narrow. "You're bluffing."

John shrugs. "Wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me to share them with you, would it?" He pulls out his mobile and scrolls through some text messages. "Here, I'm sure I've got something tame, that won't offend your sensibilities..."

Sherlock holds up a hand, already typing with the other and focusing on the small laptop screen. "Spare me. I'm already forced to share in far more of your _relationship_ than I'd like." Sherlock says the word as though it tastes bad.

"You could always occupy yourself elsewhere when Sarah comes over." When she does, Sherlock persists, in foul temper, ignoring her attempts to be friendly. John has never repeated the one very badly-received incident of having her stay the night. He goes to her place, instead.

"And Sarah could always find some other bloke to bore the life out of."

John lets it drop. There's no way round it, Sherlock is going to remain obstinately opposed to his dating Sarah, but it's not because of her, specifically. It's because Sherlock is opposed to anything that occupies John's time; makes him less present, less available. And no, there's no way to staunch this almost juvenile possessiveness. Not without years of therapy - for both of them - and possibly a frontal lobotomy for Sherlock.

If John were to be brutally honest with himself, he is glad Sarah puts up with Sherlock's almost pathological attachment. If she didn't, well. He'd miss her. But he's not up to being brutally honest with himself, at the moment. He has enough to worry about in the way of impending Harriet situation.

While Sherlock works on something obscure, John dozes, lulled by the gentle, rolling side to side pitch of the rail car. By the time the train rolls in at Haltwhistle Station, snow flurries are skirling down out of the gray sky, and it feels twenty degrees colder than it did in London.

They stand on the platform, Sherlock with one incredibly small case, and John with a collection of cases and parcels. Other travelers quickly disperse around them.

"Was Harry sending a car?" Sherlock stares off down the road behind the station.

"No, she was going to pick us up...oh, God."

"You think she's gone from drink and went into a ditch somewhere."

John frowns "No, she's never...I mean, she has a sense of when she can't drive." He starts to shoulder the bags. "She might've forgot, though."

"Ah, London, where there's always a cab waiting..."

"If you'll recall, it's psychotic cabbies waiting to find you. We'll be fine." John starts walking towards the station car park. "We'll just...get a ride with someone."

And they do. After a half an hour in the cold, from a passing farmer in an ancient pickup truck. "Oh, old Harry's place! You wouldn't be family, would you?"

John is squeezed in the middle of the bench seat, almost on top of Sherlock, so that the farmer has unobstructed access to the shifter. "She's my sister."

"Now I recognize you! Wee Johnny, all grown up!" He chortled. "My Al used to clobber you right proper every summer!" Then he sighed. "Poor Al, gone two years now. The cancer, it was."

Sherlock forestalls whatever inanity John was going to say to this by leaning across him. "Oh, well, that's a shame, because John, _wee Johnny_ , here, grew up to be the foremost cancer surgeon in London! He might have been able to sort your Al. If only...well." He waves a hand, dismissing the might-have-beens, and sits back in his seat.

"Pardon my colleague. He exaggerates," John's voice sounds loud to him in the silence of the truck cab, and for good measure he tromps on Sherlock's foot, as hard as he can. "I'm sorry to hear about Al." He then has to elbow Sherlock in the side, because Sherlock is mumbling something about _good riddance_.

When the ride comes to a rather abrupt halt at the end of North Street, John is glad to have made it without any further unpleasantries. Gravel spits towards them as the farmer speeds away. "Did you really have to make up that rubbish about me being a cancer surgeon?"

Sherlock raises an eyebrow. "Like it made any difference to that old pillock. If you ask me, his beloved, bullying boy got what he deserved."

"I don't even remember it," John says.

"Of course you do."

The house looks the same to John, whitewashed stone, slate roof, climber vines claiming more of the exterior walls than at his last visit.

"So you only summered here?" Sherlock asks, walking through the ramshackle gardens towards the door.

John hoists his baggage and follows. "Harry and I lived here, with our Aunt Madge, while dad was in the military. When he died, I was away at school in London. I just...stayed there. Harry stayed here." He doesn't volunteer any more information, and Sherlock doesn't ask, because they're at the door.

It's slightly ajar. Sherlock turns to look at John, eyebrow raised, and then pushes it open. "Hello?"

"Harry? Harriet? It's John...we've arrived..."

They proceed through the reception hall, pausing to look into rooms gone shabby and musty from neglect. Books and papers cover every flat surface. The kitchen has a sharp, yeasty tang that has less to do with the dishes piled in the sink than with the phalanx of empty bottles on the sideboard.

Sherlock pauses in the once-majestic dining conservatory, rimmed on three sides in windows, with a view of rolling hills bisected by the crumbling Wall, proclaiming the presence of Roman ghosts.

John tallies up the bottles, and decides to later check the wine store. This seems excessive, even for his sister. He proceeds to the sink, and grimaces at a plate of what appears to be, and smells like, mouldy onion on toast, in a congealed brown jelly. The rest of the food scraps are old enough to be unrecognizable.

"Does Harry have a groundskeeper?" Sherlock calls from the dining room.

"No, there's a housekeeper, part-time, but.." John dumps the plate's contents in the bin and turns. "She appears to be shirking her duties. What is it?"

Sherlock points. Down the hill, on the edge of the little, wooded hollow behind the house, a figure in a cap and plaid field jacket is hacking away at a robust pine tree. With a full size ax. A large swing misses the trunk entirely, and the figure tumbles over.

 _"Harry.”_ John turns and runs out the back door, with Sherlock on his heels.

The snow-crusted grass crunches under their feet, and John puts on a burst of speed as his sister clambers to her feet and picks up the axe again. "Oh, no you don't!" he says, catching the handle neatly as she turns. "Give it, before you hurt yourself."

She doesn't even look to see who has accosted her, much less loosen her grip on the handle. "Who the bloody hell are you, the Forestry Commission? This is my land, I'll chop the trees if I wish!" Her cap has fallen off, and the wind blows tufts of hair around, making her look daft. She squints. "John? What are you doing here?"

Already, this is going so well. "Harriet. Your letter. You, erm...invited us. Me. For the holiday." When she continues to regard him with skepticism, he prompts, "I left you a message yesterday."

"Bah, I never check the machine," Harriet says. Then she just looks at him again, lines drawing down around her mouth. "Didn't expect you'd come." She looks beyond him. "Much less bring a guest."

"Well. Surprise, then." Suddenly, John remembers Sherlock. He turns to make the introductions, and Sherlock is standing, unwontedly meek, holding Harriet's forgotten deerstalker cap, picking leaf bits off its ear flaps. "Harriet, this is my colleague. Sherlock Holmes."

Sherlock offers his hand. "Ms. Watson."

Harriet regards him for a long moment, and then gives a businesslike shake. She addresses her comment to John, however. "Fit looking bloke."

John is saved from yet another explanation of their unusual relationship by Sherlock's answer. "Thank you."

Pleasantries aside, John shoulders the axe. "What do you think you were doing out here?"

"Oh, what now, just here five minutes and already you're deciding I'm not allowed to chop my own firewood?"

John recognizes the quick turn of her temper. "I'm not deciding anything. But it's freezing out, and you still have a few logs in the box inside." He keeps a firm grip on the axe. "Let's go inside, shall we?"

This time, Harriet turns to Sherlock as John were no longer there. "My brother, here, is afraid I'll embarrass myself somehow, or him, in front of you. Amazing that I've lived here, on my own, for more than twenty years, isn't it?"

"Not at all, Ms. Watson. You seem more than up to the task," Sherlock gives John a look over Harriet's head. "I've known John to get a bit out-of-sorts when he misses his tea." He offers his arm to her. "Perhaps we should all go inside and remedy that."

Harriet bites at the inside of her cheek while she evaluates this suggestion, and then makes a rude sound. She eschews Sherlock's arm. "Oh, I get it, you're a gallant one, all right. Save it for someone that sort of thing works on." She walks past them, starting off for the house. "I suppose I could use a little nip, myself."

John falls in next to Sherlock, still carrying the axe. "I never know when you're going to pull that charming act out of your arse."

Sherlock grins. "When it suits me," he says. He still has Harriet's cap in hand, and suddenly settles it on his head.

John regards the way it's ear flaps frame Sherlock's angular face. "That cap," he replies, "Assuredly does _not_ suit you."

"Really? What if I needed to cultivate a country look? You know...to blend. With the locals."

"No."

"No matter, then." Sherlock folds the cap into a pocket of his overcoat. "Harry said she was chopping firewood. Of course that's not true. Fresh pine wouldn't be ready to burn for months."

"What do you think she was doing, then?"

"Really, John." Sherlock says archly. He points to the axe as John sets it down on the terrace. "Puzzle that one out, would you?"

Harriet has already disappeared into the back door. John can hear banging from the kitchen. Inside, she's discarded the plaid field jacket and wellingtons on the floor. He gathers them up, trying to control the clutter, when she almost knocks him over. Apparently she has the same idea, because she's carrying an armload of empty bottles "Oh. Well. Be a good boy, tote those on through to the cloakroom." She dumps the bottles into the already full kitchen bin with a clatter. "I'm going to find some...tea. In the larder."

Sherlock follows John to the disarrayed cloak room, and they arrange things as best they can. "That's not tea she's finding," John says darkly, shoving things until there's room to hang his and Sherlock's coats.

"John. Your sister is a functioning alcoholic. Since you can’t solve that problem over the course of a few days, it’s best to let her have a drink when she needs it." Sherlock regards a set of small deer antlers that have been pressed into service as a coat rack. "As she said, she's been doing this a long time, without you."

"Oh, and now you expect me to just turn a blind eye, do you? Let her drink herself into oblivion while I clean up after her, pretend things are lovely?" The wellingtons are refusing to find a place on the floor, and John kicks them into a corner.

He doesn't wait for an answer, and stalks back into the kitchen. Amazingly, Harriet has managed to shove most of the dishes into the sink, and has a kettle on the stove. She also has a large glass of sherry in her hand. She shrugs a little; pacified enough to be apologetic. "I'm a little short on noshies, at the moment. Cupboard's bare." Abruptly, she turns and fetches a tin off the counter. "My agent sent me a holiday pudding, like every year." The tin thuds on the table like it weighs twenty stone. "Bloody dense pudding, seems like."

"So, Sandra's still your agent, then? Got things in the works?" John gives Harriet the opportunity to talk about her latest book, which is apparently half-written, and this interests Sherlock enough to keep him asking her questions. John watches her surreptitiously, noting the differences. The last time he saw her was when she visited him, recovering in hospital. His memory of it is fuzzy, blurred by painkillers.

She’s been cutting her own hair, he’s sure of it; the edges are jagged, and the curls seem to lie unevenly. The gray is encroaching, lightening hair that was always a few shades lighter than his own. The round face and upturned nose that looked pixie-like when she was young have thinned into pinchiness, her mouth perpetually wry, jawline starting to succumb to the softening of age. Her skin is sallow, red-nosed from more than the cold, her eyes bloodshot. There is sweat on her upper lip.

She hasn’t put the glass down once, or John would see her hands shaking, nails bitten to the quick. The sleeves of her jumper are bunched up, and her wristwatch dangles like a bracelet on her bony wrist. Her clothes, frumpy and nondescript, hang from a frame that finally, after years and years of diet attempts, could qualify for skinny.

Before he can start making medical evaluations in his head, the teakettle whistles angrily. She has overfilled it, and it spurts boiling water that makes the burner hiss. Without looking, she reaches to take it off, and misjudges, grabbing hold of the spout.

She yelps, and knocks the kettle off its burner. More water spills onto the stove. Quickly, John sets it right. “Sherlock. Get the tea, would you?” He knows Sherlock has already discovered the cupboards are indeed bare, and is searching through the shopping bags John left on the counter earlier.

Harriet lets him take her by the wrist and over to the sink, holding her hand under the tap. She winces when the cold water hits the red, blistering skin, but he notices that throughout, she’s managed to keep a firm grip on her glass in the other hand.

“Harry,” he says quietly.

She give him a mutinous look. “Oh, bugger off, Johnny.” She pulls her hand away. “It’s nothing.”

Sherlock, in the meantime, has managed to find the tea, but not before emptying every other item from the shopping bags. There’s a pot, but no mugs.

“You’ll have to wash up a couple, I’m afraid,” Harriet mumbles. She pulls a couple out of the sink, mismatched and chipped.

John elbows her out of the way again. “Keep your hand out of it, I’ll do it.” He rinses the mugs. “Whatever happened your housekeeper?”

Harriet is pouring another glass. “Huh? Oh...Nell.” She shrugs. “Gone abroad. A few months back. Haven’t found a new girl yet.”

“Months?” John puts out an arm to take in the extent of the mess in the kitchen and sitting room. “Maybe you should start looking around for someone, before the place falls in, or the Ministry of Health shows up?”

“I’ve been busy.”

John nods, knowing he’s rapidly moving past sarcasm to outright derision, but he can’t help himself. “Right, with the book that your publisher has granted you, what was it, Sherlock...three deadline extensions on? And the classes that...oh, right, you gave up teaching when you made Clara leave, because of course, she had the very unreasonable expectation that you try to pull yourself together a bit...”

“Oh, here we go, right? You’ve barely hit the doorway and you’re already lecturing.” Harriet sloshes sherry over her hand. “You know, Johnny, when father died, it didn’t make you man of this house. You never even came home. So don’t you lord it over me.”

“You asked me here!”

“And I bloody well should’ve said if you can’t keep your narrow-minded opinions to yourself, then don’t bother showing up!” At this, Harriet gathers up the bottle in her burned hand, and turns to address Sherlock, who looks uncharacteristically discomfited over his tea. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Holmes. I can’t deal with my precious little brother criticising the sorry state of my life tonight.” As an afterthought, she tosses, “You can get your supper at the pub in the village,” over her shoulder before disappearing into her office and slamming the door.

After a long moment, John sighs. “Well, that could’ve gone better.” He stares into his tea. Sherlock never manages to get it right; there are leaves floating on the surface. “You see what I mean about her, though.”

Meanwhile, Sherlock has opened the tin containing the pudding, and is poking at it with a fork as thought it’s one of his lab specimens. “I think I see that your temper seems to be a dominant family trait.” He straightens up. “What do you say, then? Early supper?”

There is a distant thump, and then swearing, from the other room. John sets down his mug. “Might as well. She won’t be out again before morning; she’s probably got a bottle or two stashed in there.” He collects their coats and scarves; the short walk into the village is going to be a cold one. “Wishing you’d stayed back in London, then? We’re not exactly the picture-perfect family, Harry and me.”

Sherlock snorts. “You’ve met Mycroft. Compared to him, your sister’s the Sugar Plum Fairy” He grabs the pudding tin. “Come on. This thing is so soaked in brandy I’ll wager it’s flammable. Let’s give it a go. Might be a fact worth knowing, after all!”

John can’t help but laugh as he follows Sherlock out into the gathering dusk. “Right, just in case someone's ever murdered by a flaming pudding.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

With the holiday rapidly approaching, there is quite a bit of late day activity in the village. The Galloway Inn, a nondescript stone building with low, beamed ceilings, is brimming with locals, but they manage to find an unoccupied table near the fire.

John is halfway through his second pint when it hits him. He sets down his mug. “Harry was trying to cut down a tree for Christmas.”

Sherlock pushes bits of game pie skeptically around on his plate. “That was remarkably slow. Even for you.”

John refuses to watch him be picky, and switches their plates. “Here, try the fish and chips, it’s decent.” He takes a bite of the pie. “Hm. Pheasant. I think. Besides. I was a bit distracted. You’re not exactly at your best when you’re dealing with family, yourself.”

“Ah, but it’s not my family we’re dealing with here. It’s yours. And I’m thinking I’ll just leave you to that, in the morning.”

“Wha...and where are you off to, then?”

“It’s not every day I’m in the presence of one of the foremost archaeological sites in human history. I’m going for a little explore.”

John drains his mug and signals for a refill. The idea of Sherlock hiking across the hilltops in his expensive shoes, in the snow, no less, is simultaneously amusing and irritating. “Since when did human history become interesting to you? I figured it was one of those things you’d deleted long ago from that hard drive of a brain you’ve got. Like the whole earth-around-the-sun thing.”

Sherlock drums his fingers on the tabletop, watching the crowd around them. He seems momentarily fascinated by a clot of off-duty day labourers at the bar, who have broken into a loud carol. Enthusiastically off-key, they link arms and sway with their song, sloshing beer onto the floor unnoticed. Then, abruptly he turns to John again, leaning closer so he can be heard over the din. “There’s a rather notorious robbery hereabouts - unsolved, of course. Artifacts, Roman and Breton, from an archaeological dig near here. I know of a prominent collector who has an interest...”

“You took a case. That’s why you came along?” John knows his voice is disapprovingly flat, and he struggles to lighten his tone. What’s it to him what Sherlock does, or why? “Just don’t expect me to be available to assist you. I’ve things to do tomorrow.”

“What things?”

“Oh, I don’t know, perhaps you didn’t notice what a shambles the house was in. Except that you did. I’m not apologizing for not wanting to spend my Christmas holiday in a mess.” No longer hungry, he pushes his platter away. “Let’s settle up and get along, then. I may as well get started and you can...whatever. Plan your expedition.”

Sherlock sits back and folds his arms. “It’s just a little looking around. Research, if you will.”

John nods, and pulls some banknotes out of his wallet. “Right. I know. Just...dress appropriately, all right? There’s cold weather gear at the house you can use. And put on a decent pair of boots.” He leaves twenty pounds on the table, and gets up. “I’m going to go claim the takeaway I ordered earlier at the counter.” Harry probably won’t eat it, but at least it will be there, if she wants. He doesn’t like how thin she looks.

It’s almost impossible to squeeze in between the still-singing townsmen, and the second time one of them, a broad, sweating fellow, treads on his foot.

John has shoved at the man’s bulk before he can stop himself. "Hadaway, feckless git.”

The man is slow to turn around, eyes narrow and mean. “Divin' tyek a powk at 'is, taineh!” The man's companions start to look over his shoulder. They're all quite large, with an air dull menace, and John wishes he'd held his temper.

"Ten pund fer th' takeaway," says the frizzy-haired barmaid to his right. John turns, and see Sherlock handing over two five-pound notes. "Making friends, John?" Sherlock asks. "What did he just say to you? The local dialect's a bit...challenging."

"Told me not to take a poke at him. And made an uncreative slur about my height." John keeps one eye on the rowdies as he replies.

"Right, I got that part." Sherlock straightens, and addresses John's would-be assailants. "Gentlemen. I take it all’s well with you, this evening?"

There is a rumbling among the men, who seem unused to being addressed so smartly. John’s earlier conversation partner comes up with an answer. "Tek t'rod out yer arse or I'll slap'ee daft!"

Sherlock hands John the takeaway cartons, and steps in front of him. "May I just say, sir, that I'm aware you've been slapping somebody daft, as it were...your wife, who filed a non-molestation order against you, after you rather aggressively shared with her your suspicions about an affair. So she kicked you out, which would explain the unwashed state of your attire, and the...how would you say it colloquially, John...?"

"Um...stenshin." John is prepared to either toss the cartons aside, grab Sherlock, and make a run for it, or possibly start swinging. A nearby mug looks to be a passable weapon, if necessary.

"Right, _stenshin_ aroma about your person...you haven't been home for a bath or a change of clothes in awhile. Ergo, perhaps you need to take measures to control your temper, lest you end up in the village lockup again. With the holidays upon us, the constable is doubtless unlikely to be sympathetic to your continued pugilistic tendencies."

The man Sherlock has been addressing has turned stark white, and then dark red, as he tries to puzzle through Sherlock’s soliloquy and grasps the tone, if not the exact wording. John decides it's time to make their excuses. "Right, fellows, no charge for that bit of advice, then. Howair, Sherlock." He latches onto Sherlock's arm, steers him away from the stewing crowd at the counter, and back out into the winter night.

John has breathed a sigh of relief, his breath clouding the air as they walk when Sherlock turns. "Oh, damn, I left my scarf back at the pub."

"It can stay there then, unless you fancy getting pounded into sausage!"

Sherlock muses it over for a moment, and then follows. "Interesting how you seemed to take on a bit of the Northumbrian dialect yourself, back there."

John shrugs. "I grew up here. Spent a fair amount of time in claggy situations with the local toughs. It comes back." They aren't really memories he relishes, so he changes the subject. "Tell me how you managed to deduce that much about our new acquaintance, in the pub?"

"Well, there was the smell of him; armpits and feet and uncareful lavatory habits, several days worth, suggesting he's not bathed, whereas his mates just smelled like the mines. Scratches on his face; small tracks like a woman's fingernails, a few days scabbed over. He was still wearing a wedding ring, one of those modern, dark metal ones, tungsten carbide probably, suggesting a young wife with more feminist sensibilities. One who's more likely to kick her husband out and get a non-molestation order than to put up with him beating her."

John ticks these details off as Sherlock describes them, they all make sense. "The whole infidelity thing, though? From just looking at him?"

"Indeed, that was a trickier bit. But the one man behind him, did you see? Kept signaling the barmaid to buy our pungent friend drinks. Kept looking at him furtively, too. Guilty. And he kept checking his mobile, for texts. When he'd get one, he'd send a fast reply, with an expression of fear on his face - but when the other man looked at him, he'd put a smile on like all was well. He's the one having an affair with the wife, and worried about being caught out at it. Oh, and -” an afterthought -"he bore the faint scent of a woman’s perfume. Cheap, the kind you could get at the village chemist. Definitely shagging the wife, cuckolding the husband.”

John looks up at the snow spiraling down out of the dark sky. "Amazing.”

When they arrive back at the house, it’s cold and dark. John sends Sherlock upstairs with his case to pick a guest room while he goes to check on the boiler. Fortunately, it’s a simple fix, and he reignites the pilot light. After that, Sherlock seems disinclined to come back downstairs, so John sits at the kitchen table to make a list of tasks for the morrow. It’s too late to hire a new housekeeper or even contract a cleaning service, so he’s got a day of clearing and tidying ahead of him. He’s already decided to forgo the Christmas decorations. The tree Harry had been chopping at was far too tall to get in the house anyhow.

It frustrates him that she went so far as to invite him, and then totally neglected to do any preparation. Not that he expected a Dickensian fairy tale Christmas, but she could’ve made an effort, at least. He channels his frustration into cleaning the kitchen.

This is no small task, and involves not just washing and drying the dishes, but finding places for the detritus strewn here and there; some of it normal in a kitchen, like tea towels and seafood forks and what seems to be a collection of salt cellars. Other items are frankly odd, like a jar of seashells, a plaster casting of (presumably Harry’s) upper and lower jaw, some obscure old comics, and several mismatched orthotic insoles. John almost wishes Sherlock was around to evaluate the meaning of each item, but Sherlock hasn’t come back downstairs. Which means he’s either fallen asleep (doubtful) or is engrossed in prowling around upstairs (more likely).

John tries not to get angrier with each bottle of liquor he discovers hidden; a pint of blackberry brandy in a coffee pot, a fifth of gin under the sink with the cleaning agents. He knows he should feel compassion for Harriet. He’s a physician, he knows alcoholism is a disease and that she can’t stop herself any more than she could stop a brain tumor in the process of forming.

He doesn’t see why she couldn’t at least try. Instead of steadily, willfully pickling herself. When does each drink stop being a choice?

By the time he finishes wiping down the counters, he’s exhausted. Rather than going upstairs to a proper bedroom, the last thing he does is start a fire in the sitting room hearth and collapse onto the sofa with an afghan. He dislodges a pile of papers from the side table when he does so, and watches them scatter across the floor.

Tomorrow. The rest can wait until then.

*

 _Something is burning._

John awakens with a start and kicks over a lamp. “That’s fine, never really liked that one anyhow,” says Harriet dryly, from somewhere within the miasma of burning smell.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?”

Harriet is in the kitchen. No, she is in the midst of a disaster, an apocalypse of dirty dishes, food packages and spilt goo. Something brown and unspeakable is even dripping off the counter onto the floor. Dark smoke is trailing up from the closed oven door. “What do you think I’m doing? Have you never smelt mince pie before?”

“Harriet! That’s not mince pie, that’s the aftermath of a rocket attack on a defenseless farming village! What have you done?”

She stands mutinously. Her dressing gown is coated in flour and in front is a large brown stain similar to whatever is dripping on the floor. She appears to have run butter into her hair. “Oh, well pardon me for deciding to cook up a little Christmas cheer this morning!” She bangs a wooden spoon into a pan loudly. “It’s not like I could’ve gone back to sleep after your friend trooped out of here like Shackleton going to explore Antarctica!”

John rubs his eyes. So apparently Sherlock was up early for his trek to the Wall. He looks outside to see that they’ve had a good bit of snow overnight, and hopes that Sherlock took his advice to dress warmly.

Harriet stands aside as he comes into the kitchen, and she’s starting to look a little guilty as he opens the oven and smoke billows out. Cursing, he grabs a couple of tea towels and hauls out the tray of dark, dessicated pies.

“So, maybe this batch is a little overdone,” Harriet says defensively. “The first few turned out.”

He looks at the temperature knob. “That must have been before you turned the oven up to 500.”

“It’s not...what?” Harriet’s glasses are on a chain around her neck. When she hurriedly puts them on, they appear to be smudged with lard. She drops them again with a disgusted sound. “I misread the dial,” she says grudgingly.

Just from looking at the lopsided little pies already on the counter, John estimates that a few of them may be salvageable. "No matter. Let's bin these, then, before they stink up the entire house." Too late, but perhaps he can open a window later.

He dumps them outside to horrify the local wildlife, and returns to find Harriet fiddling with the coffeemaker; a high-tech device she obviously has no idea how to use. "There's eggs, and bread, if you fancy some breakfast," she says.

John turns to see these items sitting on the counter, sandwiched between the mince pie makings. Apparently she means if he fancies cooking his own breakfast. "Did you shop?"

"Of course not. There's a farmer down the way, Hemmings...he drops them off a couple of times a week."

John looks around the utter destruction in the kitchen he finished cleaning not six hours prior. He's going to have to triage the day's tasks, or they'll be eating eggs in a dirty kitchen for Christmas dinner. He starts the coffee brewing, and fries up some eggs. Harriet, fortunately, is up to making toast.

"So, what are you planning for dinner, then?"

Harriet looks a little confused. "I thought you brought things."

"Things, yes! Some fruit and veg. A smoked salmon. Sausages. Tea, biscuits, a cake from my landlady. Not what constitutes a Christmas dinner." He opens the fridge, and of course it's no more stocked than yesterday when he loaded in what he'd picked up in London.

He slams the door shut so hard that bottles rattle. "Well, then. Looks like we'll be having a cocktail reception instead of Christmas dinner. Not that I'd guess you're complaining."

Harriet rolls bloodshot eyes. "Oh, get off your high horse. The pub does up a nice spread if you order it ahead." She fumbles around in the mess on the counter until she comes up with a phone. John watches as she dials, already pretty sure of the outcome.

"Yes, this is Harriet Watson. What? Oh, hello Jenny. Happy Christmas to you too. Um, well, is it too late to order some...right. Of course. I should've thought. Of course not, my fault, really. What? Oh..." Harriet looks over at John and shrugs. "She wants to know if we'd like her to make up a plate of vol-au-vents. And a trifle."

John holds out his hand, and Harriet hands him the phone. "Hello, Jenny, is it? Yes, oh, well, yes, this is Harriet's brother. Yes, I was there last night, with a friend. Oh...there was a bit of a row, after we left? I'm...sorry to hear that. I hope everyone was...oh, in hospital, is he? That's too bad. Well, back to business..."

Fortunately, Jenny doesn't seem to hold the row in the pub against him, and he cajoles not only the plate of suggested canapés, but even a ham to fill out their somewhat non-traditional spread. As well as the trifle. He considers it a modest success as he puts the phone down. "Now, after I spent hours cleaning this kitchen last night, you're going to help me put it straight again!"

"Or what?" Harriet looks amused, and actually has the nerve to pour something out of a bottle into her coffee.

"Or...or I'll be damned cross with you, Harry! Can't you not be difficult, for one day?"

"Oh, Johnny," Harriet takes a long drink of whatever's in her mug. "Hasn't it occurred to you that maybe you _like_ difficult?"

"I... _what_?" Affront makes John's voice go up an octave.

Harriet looks as smug as a frowsy, bleary-eyed person can look. "Your friend, the intrepid Mr. Holmes...he's easy to get along with, is he?"

"Sherlock...is my _flatmate_...which I assure you is an arrangement of financial and occupational convenience, nothing more, is completely..." John stops, and searches for the word. And can't find one, because Harriet is looking at him expectantly. "At any rate, I'm seeing someone. A woman, as the case may be."

"How lovely for you."

"It is, thank you, and she's in Lisbon over Christmas, and frankly, I'm glad I didn't get to bring her here, because you've been insufferably -"

John is interrupted by a thud against the back door. A loud one, as though a rutting stag has attempted to breach it and failed. He and Harriet exchange shocked looks, and then they run to see.

Sherlock is lying on the back steps, covered in snow and even paler than usual.

"Sherlock!" John has to shove him off the steps with the door in order to get it open. "What's happened to you? Are you injured?" When he gets no reply, he grabs Sherlock's shoulders and shakes him. "Answer me, man!"

"Slap him," Harriet suggests, looking over John's shoulder. "Maybe he's fainted. These posh types can't handle weather."

"Don't slap me, I'm fine. Just a bit winded." Sherlock's voice sounds reedy, and his eyes are still closed. When he opens them, they contain the wonder of a small child on Christmas Morning. "It's remarkable."

John lets out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "What's remarkable? Oh, never mind." He bends down and hauls one of Sherlock's arms over his shoulder. "Up you get."

Harriet gives way as John half-supports, half-drags Sherlock to a couch. "You should get him out of those clothes; he's soaked," she observes.

John bats away her hands. "Just his coat. And his shoes. Sherlock, did you miss the part last night were I suggested you dress warmly?" John manages to wrestle Sherlock out of the coat, and replaces it with an afghan. "God, Harry, make yourself useful, would you? See if there's still coffee!"

Remarkably, she goes to do it. John adds another afghan before turning his attention to the aforementioned shoes, which are still dripping snow-melt all over the carpet. John takes them off, and peels off Sherlock's socks, and is sobered by the sight of his white, white feet. They are as cold as the ice they resemble.

Without a second thought, John sits on the ottoman and pulls Sherlock's feet into his lap. He tucks one up against his torso as he chafes the other between his hands, trying to rub circulation and precious warmth into it. "You should really have more of a care for yourself. The cellular damage from frostbite is permanent."

"And takes longer to occur. I only lost feeling in them, oh, maybe a half-hour ago," Sherlock raises his head from the back of the couch to look. "They're not even black."

"They don't have to turn black to indicate serious frostbite, you idiot," John mutters, frustrated with the refusal of Sherlock's foot to warm. It's as obstinate as the rest of him. "Can you feel what I'm doing right now?"

Harriet has returned with the requested coffee, and Sherlock accepts the cup. One of the afghans is over his head like a babushka, and his hair curls damply out from under it. He looks oddly gamine-like, holding his cup in both hands. "Somewhat. You have calluses." He watches as John continues. "I don't think anyone's ever touched my feet before." He takes a sip of his tea, and his eyes have a faraway look, as if evaluating the unfamiliar sensation.

John focuses on the clinical details; Sherlock's feet feel warmer, and while still pale, they're pinking up under his ministrations. Harriet, with unusual attentiveness, has produced a substantial-looking pair of wool socks. She hands them over and picks up Sherlock's coat. "I'll just hang this up to dry, then," she says.

John regards the incongruousness of the very outdoorsy socks on Sherlock, and when he looks up again, Harriet is gone. He turns his attention back to Sherlock. "Well, crisis averted then. You want to tell me what was so remarkable out there?"

"What?" Sherlock seems startled, as though John's words pull him out of a reverie. "Oh...the Wall. Such a well-engineered structure, to have endured this long."

"The Great Wall of China is older. And in better shape," John points out. "Did you find the dig site you were looking for?"

Sherlock waves this off. "It seemed that my sources may have been a bit navigationally challenged. No matter, it was worth the trek. There's something to be said for a bit of the rough wilderness in one's life."

John stares at him. "Who are you, and what have you done with Sherlock Holmes?"

Sherlock seems to finally realize he's wearing not one, but two afghans, and sits up abruptly. "John. You can stop babysitting me now." He lets the afghans drop back on the couch. "I see why you and Harry don't get along, by the way. She resents your care-taking tendencies, and you resent her inability to manage her life."

John stands up in disgust. First Harriet, and now Sherlock, both of them seem to want to analyse his relationships. Right, because _they're_ both normal, highly functional individuals. They can piss off. "Explorer, would-be archaeologist, armchair psychologist - I've had about enough of your consultancy for one day."

Sherlock shrugs, amused. "No charge, of course." As if for the first time, he looks around the cluttered sitting room. The lamp is still lying on the floor where John kicked it. Beyond, the kitchen is still a shambles. Harriet is nowhere to be seen. "Bit of a mess in here."

John nods. “So you noticed. Harriet managed to undo the cleaning I did last night with her attempt at mince pies this morning.”

“Was that what they were? Stinking lumps of charcoal in the snow outside?”

“Well, unless Father Christmas made an early visit to Harriet, that would be them, yes.”

“Pity. I’m famished.”

John is already in the kitchen again, trying to stave off despair. "Feel free to forage, then. There'll be food from the pub later, but for now you're on your own."

Sherlock is padding around the sitting room in his wool socks. His interest settles on a stack of boxes behind the couch, and without a word he starts rummaging through them.

John sets to repeating the cleaning tasks of the previous evening. The uneasiness that started out upon their arrival in Haltwhistle as vague trepidation has turned into full-blown regret, and a hostility towards Harriet that grows with every dish he has to scrub and put away. His old therapist would no doubt suggest he work for resolution of that hostility, but that would use up precious energy he needs to keep cleaning, so he doesn't bother.

"Are you going to keep dropping things? You've probably broken an entire china set by now," Sherlock observes from the sitting room.

John looks up from sweeping shards of a saucer into a pile. "I'd probably break far less if someone was _helping me_ ," he says, knowing full well he sounds like a waspish wife, and unable to even do anything about it, because Sherlock is being a complete prat. Not to mention a bad houseguest.

"Can't you see I'm busy?" Sherlock has unloaded the contents of two, no...three boxes onto the floor, and is examining something with his magnifying lens.

John practically throws the broom into the corner. "No, I can't see! Or, rather I can see that you've created a mess exponentially larger than the one I was trying to clear up! What are you even doing? What _is_ that?" He stalks over and snatches the thing, a small photograph, out of Sherlock's hand.

He stares at the faded image as Sherlock says, "It appears to be a photograph of your family, when you were small." Sherlock stands to look at it with him, and points to the frowning little boy on the end. "Clearly you were displeased about the holidays even as a child."

John regards the photo. By his guess it's at least thirty years old. Harriet is an awkward, spotty adolescent in glasses, long straw-colored braids and a red coat. He is a truculent primary-schooler in a puffy parka and knit toboggan cap. Between them is a somber man with a large hand on each of their shoulders.

"That's your father?" Sherlock asks. There is something like tact in his voice.

John clears his throat; it's clogged with an annoying thickness. "Yes, he's...this would've been the Christmas after Mother died."

There is a long silence, and finally John looks down at the box contents spread about the floor. There are a few more photographs, and a sad assortment of old Christmas tree ornaments. A few of them are in pieces.

"It looks like no one's even had these things out in years," Sherlock says. John nods, he's sure it's true. Until they had moved in with their mother's sister, there had been a couple of years without a Christmas celebration at all.

"I brought the boxes down with the intention of putting up a Christmas tree this year," Harriet's wry voice says from behind them. "Until you both, well...rescued me."

John turns and stares at her in shock as she smiles at him. She has apparently spent the last hour or so getting cleaned up. Her hair is arranged in some semblance of a style, and she has turned out in what is apparently her idea of holiday finery: well-cut tweed trousers and a black velvet waistcoat over a crisp white shirt. Something at the neck catches John's eye and he looks closer: it's a gold brooch with red and green stones.

"Ms. Watson, you're looking well," Sherlock says from behind John.

She makes a rude noise at him. "Oh, go on with you. You're both just glad I didn't turn up in a stained dressing gown and wearing a wreath of candles on my head." She smiles again. "And please, any friend of my brother's is a friend of mine. Call me Harry."

John looks sidelong at Sherlock, who actually appears touched, unless he perhaps has something in his eye. "Thank you, Harry. You've been very welcoming. I envy John such a hospitable sibling."

"Oh, you don't have any brothers or sisters, then?"

John doesn't wait for Sherlock to make up something cryptic. "He and his brother don't get along."

"Hm. Imagine that." Harriet looks at John with comically raised eyebrows. "Well. Since there's no tree to decorate, perhaps we could at least set some of these things about...maybe on the mantle?" She bends down and picks up a couple of ornaments. "Better than nothing."

John watches Harriet and Sherlock sort through the box contents for a few minutes, with Harriet answering Sherlock’s various questions about this or that. A few items find their way onto the mantlepiece, like a small creche and some faded paper chains.

John is considering leaving them to it and making the short drive into the village to pick up the food at the pub when there is a knock at the door. "I'll get it," he calls to Harriet, who is poring over another photograph with Sherlock.

He opens the door and loses the power of speech.

"Good to see you, John," Mycroft is dressed in a long overcoat, and carrying a godawful flower arrangement. "Might I come in?"

John looks beyond Mycroft to see his ubiquitous assistant, dressed in a fur and still texting away on her handheld. After a few seconds she looks up, her pretty face twisted in a scowl. "I can't keep a cell signal out here at all."

It's with a perverse sense of enjoyment that John ushers them in. "Sherlock," he calls out. "I believe you have a Christmas visitor!"

Sherlock comes into the hallway holding what appears to be a drunken elf figurine. "Who?-" His eyes narrow. "How did you find me here?"

Mycroft laughs. "Oh, Sherlock, come now! Do you really think there's anywhere I couldn't find you?"

"Who's here now?" Harriet appears behind Sherlock, bits of tinsel glittering in her hair. She stops and folds her arms over her chest. "If you're from the bank, you can speak with my solicitor."

John goggles at her for a moment, and then looks back at Sherlock, who is still glaring. Mycroft is still smiling. His assistant is peevishly brushing snow off her coat.

"He's not from the bank. Harriet, this is Mycroft Holmes. And..." he turns to the assistant, who looks at him like she has no idea who he is. "Anthea, is it? Still?"

She nods even as she swans past John, handing him her coat without a backwards glance. Harriet finishes off shaking hands with Mycroft and gives Anthea a considerably warmer and more interested greeting. "Come in and we'll all have a drink, then. Pity the sitting room's such a mess..."

Sherlock and John hang back as Harriet escorts Mycroft and Anthea into the sitting room. Mycroft's horrid flower arrangement, a monstrosity of red blooms and bows, receives a place of honor. "Uggh, he has no taste whatsoever..." Sherlock mutters.

"Oh, are those mince pies I spy there on the counter?" Mycroft apparently has no qualms about Harriet's cooking, and she seems happy enough to appease him by dumping one on a plate.

"I think I'll go fetch the food from the pub," John dubiously eyes the holiday tableau taking place as Harriet starts opening bottles of wine.

Sherlock grabs him by the arm. "You'll do no such thing! Get rid of him!"

John shakes his head. "Oh, no. Not on Christmas Eve, now that my 'hospitable sibling' is entertaining yours." A smile creeps across his face as he watches Harriet discuss a vintage with Mycroft while she pours for Anthea. "We'll give them an hour, and then we'll slip out and head for the pub. With any luck Mycroft will run out of patience and go home."

"You don't know my brother."

"And you don't know Harry. She'll have him unbearably uncomfortable in less than an hour, I promise you. Or he’ll be sick off the pies. Either way, we’ll be shut of him."

Sherlock takes a deep breath, apparently steeling himself for the upcoming familial interaction. "Fine. But next year we're going where _I_ want for Christmas." He stalks ahead, the effect dampened somewhat by the thick wool socks he's still wearing.

John smiles, and follows him.

 _The End._   



End file.
